5 Ways to Successfully Finish Q4

November marks the midway point of Q4, and the busiest part of the year is just getting started as the holiday shopping season rapidly approaches. Here are five basic strategies you can still add to the end of your Q4 business checklist to jump-start success as the fiscal year begins again.?

1. Forecast Inventory

Check storage limits to determine what you should do with products you have under- and overstocked. The holiday season is a great time to eliminate excess stock or further prove the merit of keeping popular items in stock above others. To estimate accordingly, ensure you are looking at last year’s numbers and the current year’s growth/deficits.

2. Optimize Listings?

Take the time to make sure your most lucrative listings are optimized for the best conversion throughout the holidays. This includes ensuring compliance on category-sensitive products, including SEO-rich titles and listing bullets, and providing high-quality product visuals that give the ideal product impression at a glance. If you focus on a few listings that will impact sales the most, you can increase customer conversion rates and figure out the best optimization template to apply to the rest of your catalog in the coming year.?

3. Plan for Deals

While you still can, plan in advance for any short-term coupons, discounts, or lightning deals you want to offer during this high-traffic shopping period. Applying discounts to overstocked items or bestseller products with optimized listings is a great way to ensure your inventory stays balanced and in demand through the rest of the season. Advertising discounts is also the most enticing way to get potential customers to engage with ad campaigns.?

4. Strategize Advertising

Act as early as possible before Black Friday and start a PPC and DSP ad strategy to take full advantage of the holidays. This is the best way to target return customers or engage with potential customers who may be exploring unfamiliar product categories while looking for gift ideas. As a general rule, plan to increase ad budgets during this time of the year to take advantage of any unexpected shopping trends that develop.?

5. Focus On Brand Awareness

If you’ve taken the time to have the right stock, SEO, discounts, and ads running for new customers during this time, it’s worth the time to make sure your brand is being properly represented on your listings and storefront.?

Ensure that potential customers can immediately recognize your brand’s trustworthiness and distinctiveness from competitors. Properly showcasing your products will help customers view your storefront and listings as their go-to destination for gifts or seasonal purchases.

Taking action with at least one of these strategy recommendations will help ensure you’re doing everything possible to capitalize on one of the most high-traffic shopping periods of the year. Seeking an external agency to help you is a great way to ensure all five of these practices are being kept top of mind for the Amazon platform all year round, especially if your in-house team doesn’t have the resources to manage multiple e-commerce platforms effectively.?

Contact Brad Saksons, our director of sales, or anyone at Buy Box Experts if you have questions or want to chat about what we can do to support you. We’ll be happy to help you set up your next fiscal year for success!

AMAZON NEWS AND NOTES?

• More Innovations to Come from UnBoxed 2023

Our team went to Amazon UnBoxed from October 24 to 26 and took in the innovations and technology announcements meant to bridge the gap between audience and advertiser. Major announcements included:

• A cross-channel planner for holistic media planning
• A self-service Sponsored TV streaming ad solution to help brands of any size reach streaming audiences
• A first look at the new Amazon Ads tool for AI-powered image generation (in beta testing)?
• Innovations like Amazon DSP Events Manager and updates on tools like AMC Audiences to help with custom audience insights and generation
• Prime Video advertising, which will be introduced in 2024?

A more direct review from our team is coming soon, so follow Amazon Marketplace Insights to get extra posts, updates, and more of our monthly newsletters.